


you give me cause for love that I can't hide

by thescuttlebugg



Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Adrien Is Not A Good Liar, Alternate Universe - Fusion, And Also FUSION Fic, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Marinette Is Not Like The Other Rubies, Secret Crush, Secret Identities, fusion fic, yes I'm very funny I know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescuttlebugg/pseuds/thescuttlebugg
Summary: Ruby’s gem is her left ear. It’s the only thing about her that is different from the other Rubies she knows, whose gems are all in different places. Otherwise, she’s just like them: strong and hard-working and stubborn to a fault, always prepared to follow orders and never backing down from a fight.And dreamy, and loving pretty things, and yearning tomakepretty things, and maybe just a little bit in love.Or a lot.So no. Her gem’s location is not the only thing about her that is different from the other Rubies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT MY FAULT YOU MAY ALL BLAME [ESCUROCHI](http://escurochi.tumblr.com/) AT YOUR LEISURE. THEY ASKED FOR THIS. THEY BROUGHT THIS UPON US ALL. I AM INNOCENT. 
> 
> This is a fusion fic, meaning I tweaked both canons and stuck Marinette and Adrien on Homeworld. All you really need to know is that Ruby = Marinette, but Ruby =/= any canon!Ruby. Everybody else should be pretty obvious from context. Really even the Ruby/Marinette thing probably is but I figured I’d be clear from the start. Understanding Miraculous Ladybug is probably more important than understanding Steven Universe, but really you should be able to get by okay either way.

Ruby’s gem is her left ear. It’s the only thing about her that is different from the other Rubies she knows, whose gems are all in different places. Otherwise, she’s just like them: strong and hard-working and stubborn to a fault, always prepared to follow orders and never backing down from a fight. 

And dreamy, and loving pretty things, and yearning to _make_ pretty things, and maybe just a little bit in love. 

Or a lot. 

So no. Her gem’s location is not the only thing about her that is different from the other Rubies. 

Or maybe not. Maybe every Ruby thinks that at one point or another before they become a proper Ruby. Maybe this is normal. If she asked Ruby 4L4 Cut-1YA _(who is not her favorite other Ruby, because Rubies are all the same so it doesn’t matter)_ , then maybe the other would say something like, “Of course, girl, we all thought that once! Then we stopped, and now we’re all just the way we were made to be!” 

Ruby doesn’t want it to stop, though, so maybe she’d still be different even then, and maybe there’s no fixing her. Maybe she will always speak up too quickly and presume too much, maybe she will always stare dreamy-eyed at the stars, maybe she will always have these strange, strange feelings that no other Ruby seems to. 

Maybe she will always want pretty things, and to _make_ pretty things. 

Maybe she will always look at the veils and curtains that hide Black Sapphire from her view and make those strange, strange feelings burn even brighter inside her gem. 

Ruby knows everything about the Black Sapphire that she and her fellow Rubies guard for Purple Diamond. She has his schedule memorized down to the minute and knows everything he ever does, and even though she’s never seen his face, she could pick the soft, sweet murmur of his voice out of any crowd. Not that he’s ever been in a crowd, of course--Black Sapphire never leaves Purple Diamond’s castle. Black Sapphire hardly even leaves his _room_. 

He is terribly kind, even to clumsy, dreamy Rubies who mess up on their first day, and also terribly, terribly sad. 

So very terribly sad. 

Ruby wishes she could do something about that. Ruby wishes she could draw back the eternal curtain between them. 

Ruby _wishes_. 

Ruby has never felt like this about any other Gem, not in her entire existence. She’s never seen more than Black Sapphire’s silhouette, but she’s memorized every line of it. Just hearing that soft, sweet murmur of his makes her feel like she’s looking at the stars or in the middle of creating something secret and lovely. 

Because everything Ruby creates is a secret, of course, and has to be hidden or destroyed after. Rubies _don’t_ create. It’s not what they do. Not what they’re _for_. 

But Ruby wants to so very, very much. 

More than she wants to see Black Sapphire’s face, even. 

So sometimes . . . not all the time, just _sometimes_ . . . sometimes she sneaks away when she’s not on duty, and finds a little hidden nook all to herself somewhere outside the castle, and then . . . then she just makes something. Anything. Just something-- _new_. 

Something just hers, that no other Ruby has ever made. 

Today Ruby stole a Peridot’s datapad to draw on. The Peridot is going to be mad if he notices, but he’s off-duty right now too, so . . . so hopefully he won’t? And if he does and he _finds_ her, well--she’ll just pretend she was trying to play a game on it! Or was just bored. Or . . . or something like that. And it’ll be fine. 

As long as she manages to delete her drawing in time, anyway. 

Today’s drawing is all soft, swooping lines, light and airy like Black Sapphire’s veil, immoveable and unmoving like the drape of the curtains in his room. It’s not a real thing, just something Ruby made up in her head while she was thinking about that veil, those curtains, Black Sapphire’s soft, soft voice. 

The idea of deleting it hurts, but the idea of never drawing it at all hurts worse, somehow. Ruby’s never been able to understand those feelings; she can only do her best to _stand_ them. She’s gotten pretty good at it, she thinks. 

But she still hates the idea of deleting the drawing, so maybe she’s not that good at it after all. 

“Oh!” a surprised voice blurts out, too close and too eager and too _loud_ , and Ruby jerks back against the wall of her hidden nook and yanks her stolen datapad to her chest like it can’t be seen straight through anyway. The voice is the voice of a gem she doesn’t know who’s just come around the corner, and yes, yes, he’s _definitely_ in much too close. 

She should’ve found a better nook. 

Whoever this gem is, he’s just a little bit taller than Ruby: a gray-skinned, black-eyed gem with white hair dressed all in black and gray. His gem is on the back of his right hand, sitting in the center of his dark gray glove all black and shining and smooth, a pale cat’s eye mark splitting up the middle. It almost looks like a crack, for a moment. 

And he isn’t wearing a Diamond insignia, which startles Ruby even more than his abrupt appearance did. 

“Did you draw that?” he asks wonderingly, staring at the datapad, and Ruby stiffens reflexively, tightening her grip on it. “It’s _amazing_!” 

“. . . who _are_ you?” she asks, staring at him in disbelief. She’s a Ruby. Nothing she created could ever be amazing. That’s not what she’s made for. 

“I’m--Catseye!” the strange gem says, drawing himself up a little taller and grinning down at her. She thinks she sees a flicker of insecurity in it, but--no, no, not a grin like _that_. It must’ve been a trick of the light, like the moment when his cat’s eye mark had looked like a crack. “You’re--um, a Ruby, right?” 

“Yes,” Ruby replies guardedly, clutching the datapad a little closer to her chest again. She wonders why he hesitated over that. Everyone knows what Rubies look like, after all. But--he’s just a Catseye. They’re not as common as Rubies, but they’re not as _useful_ , either. 

They’re actually not very useful at all, really, which makes her wonder what this one was made for. 

And what he’s doing _here_ , grinning down at her and calling her drawing “amazing” and with no Diamond insignia. 

“It’s so pretty,” Catseye says, looking at the datapad with an expression of awe. It makes _him_ pretty, without the too-brash grin to distract from the softness of his eyes. Ruby very decidedly does _not_ notice that, though. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

She considers making a break for it. But, well . . . 

He’s just a Catseye. Everyone knows they’re silly and a bit stupid, and they’re really just meant to lay about and look nice--like less useful Pearls. No one’s going to believe a _Catseye_ if he starts babbling on about seeing a Ruby drawing. 

Besides, even if someone did, he’d never be able to pick her out from all the other Rubies. 

“It’s just scribbles,” she says anyway, because--because that’s all she says. She can’t explain the way that everything her stupid dreamy self wants and needs is reflected in a file she’ll have to delete any minute now. 

Catseye’s eyes snap back to her as she speaks, a strange giddy glee in them. Ruby doesn’t understand why. 

“They’re _amazing_!” he insists again, clutching his hands to his chest. Ruby has the irrational urge to stare at his gem, which is--which is _not_ a reasonable urge. At all. 

It’s a very pretty gem, though. Even for a Catseye. 

“What’s it for?” Catseye asks, leaning over in a blatant attempt at getting a better look at the picture. Ruby tilts the pad for him warily, not really sure what else to do. It can’t hurt, right? Not any worse, anyway. 

And he’s just a silly Catseye. 

“Nothing,” Ruby says, because he _is_ just a silly Catseye, after all. “Just because.” 

The look he gives her at that is--she doesn’t even _know_ what it is. 

“ _You’re_ amazing,” he says. “Will you show me how you did it?” 

“Why?” she asks, baffled by both the question and the--compliment? Was that a compliment? There’s nothing amazing about Rubies; Rubies are normal. 

“Just because,” Catseye says, and grins that wide, wide grin again. This time--it looks a little prettier, this time. Something jumps in Ruby’s gut, and she doesn’t know how to look back at him. 

“Very funny,” she says, picking “dubiousness” as the safe reaction. Or a safer one than the one she wants to have, anyway. 

“Please?” he asks hopefully as he kneels next to her, in so close that their sides are pressed together. In so close like it’s nothing, like it’s something so simple to do. Ruby’s seen Catseyes act like this before, but not with--with the gems they _belong_ to, not just any old gem they meet. It’s hard to stay dubious in the face of. 

The daring, dreamy part of Ruby remembers something she’s seen some of those gems do, and with a sudden rush of recklessness she reaches out and scratches Catseye under the chin. Catseye’s eyes widen for a moment, then go half-lidded and soft, and he makes a breathy, happy little . . . is that a purr? Is that what purrs sound like? Ruby isn’t sure. 

She likes how it sounds, either way. 

“Silly Catseye,” she sighs resignedly, and he smiles at her so _sweetly_ that she could almost mistake it for her own dreams of what Black Sapphire would smile like, if anyone ever gave him cause to. If she could give him cause to. Something seems to pulse in her gem, a strange half-melody of a thing, and then Catseye’s sweet smile turns into a flirty smirk and he leans into her hand and _that_ \--yes, _that_ sound is a purr. 

“I’d really like to see how you draw, my Ruby,” he says. Her mouth thins reflexively and she drops her hand away from him. He makes a mournful sound, and she grips the datapad tightly to keep her hands where they belong. 

“I’m not your Ruby,” she tells him with a faint frown. Her voice sounds strange when she says it, though she can’t quite understand why. “I’m _a_ Ruby, that’s all.” 

Technically, Ruby belongs to Purple Diamond, but not in an important enough way that he knows she exists. She was created for him, yes, but not for any special purpose. She doesn’t even belong to Black Sapphire, much as she might wish otherwise. 

“You’re the most amazing Ruby I’ve ever met,” he says near-reverently--as if he’d even be able to tell her _apart_ from any of those other Rubies. As if he’d even recognize her if he saw her again. 

How can he call her “his”, knowing that? 

“I’m exactly like every other Ruby,” Ruby retorts with a huff as she plants a finger on Catseye’s nose and pushes him back, mouth thinning again as some secret part of her wishes things were just a little bit different–the daring part that steals datapads and sneaks off to draw pretty things and wishes more than anything that it were brave enough to reach out and lift Black Sapphire’s veil and that Black Sapphire would _want_ her to lift it. The foolish, dreamy part that she’s sure a Ruby shouldn’t have, not even temporarily. 

The part that wishes--

That wishes--

“And I’m _not_ yours,” Ruby adds firmly, giving Catseye a pointed look. He stays right where she pushed him and looks at her like . . . like . . . 

Like she doesn’t know what, honestly. 

“Could I be your Catseye, then?” he asks in an oddly soft voice, an uncharacteristic shyness coming over him. It’s a put-on, Ruby can only assume. 

“ _Very_ funny,” she snorts, rolling her eyes. Catseye keeps looking at her, though, that same strange shyness still in his eyes, and the dreamy, stupid part of her hears him saying words he isn’t saying, words that aren’t real--hears _“let’s run away, let’s go right now, you and me and the best worst idea of our lives and nobody else, we’re never going to see each other again but if we leave right now we could see each other FOREVER.”_

Which is stupid and dreamy even by _her_ standards, honestly. Even if Catseye _did_ say something like that--even if he said something like that and really _meant it_ \--Ruby could never leave Black Sapphire. 

She hears the next guard shift coming, a familiar echo of matched footsteps coming from around the corner. Ruby is used to dodging patrols, so it’s only an observable fact--the trigger for a quick escape, a reason to retreat. Much less concerning than Catseye’s unanticipated appearance was. 

At least, it’s only an observable fact until she sees Catseye’s eyes flaring in alarm and the sudden terror in his expression. Ruby can’t imagine why _he’s_ scared of being caught, but her reaction is all instinct. She jams the datapad into the back of her belt and lunges for him, scooping him up to leap straight up into a higher hidden nook against the side of the building and--

\--and--

And light flashes, and Corundum who is _much_ bigger than either Ruby or Catseye scrabbles for a hand-hold in the suddenly too-small nook and just _barely_ manages to keep it. They freeze. They hold their breath. 

The patrol passes by beneath them. Rubies, all in perfect formation; all in perfect step. They don’t talk to each other, because they have nothing to talk about. 

The echo of the patrol’s perfectly-matched footsteps fades, slowly. 

Corundum trembles in their nook, then bursts apart in another flash of light. The force of their fusion breaking throws Ruby and Catseye in opposite directions, and they both land badly. The datapad clatters to the ground between them. 

“Ah,” Catseye chokes, his eyes wide and his dark-gloved hands shaking against his chest. 

“I’m sorry!” Ruby blurts, horrified with herself--with _both_ of them, but mostly herself. She’s never fused with anyone not another Ruby. But Catseye--Catseye’s never fused before at all. Ruby _knows_ he’s never fused before. 

Ruby knows that because she _felt_ it. 

“I’m sorry!” she repeats in a half-babble, covering her face. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t–I didn’t mean–!” 

_“Ruby,”_ Catseye breathes as he reaches out for her with those shaking hands, nothing but awe in his expression. “Ruby, you’re–you’re _wonderful_.” 

“No,” Ruby says, shaking her head and stepping back out of reach as a chill goes through her facets. They’re going to be _shattered_ for this. She fused with someone who didn’t want to fuse with her--with someone _not a Ruby_! And Catseye . . . she doesn’t know if Catseyes ever fuse, but if they do, it’s definitely not with _Rubies_. That’s _not_ how it _works_! “I’m not. That wasn’t--that _can’t_.” 

“Please don’t leave,” Catseye begs desperately, still reaching out to her; still trembling. Ruby looks at his dark, shining gem and remembers seeing it on Corundum’s hand–remembers feeling it as a part of herself, feeling _Catseye_ as a part of herself, feeling–feeling–

“We can never–we can’t ever,” she says, still slowly shaking her head; taking another step back. Holding her hands against her sides, where Catseye can’t reach them. “They’ll shatter us.” 

“I don’t care,” Catseye says, still with that same desperate tremulousness to his expression. “Let them. My Ruby, _please_.” 

_“I CARE!”_ Ruby shouts back furiously, her own volume surprising her. But–but it should _matter_ to him, to be shattered! She can’t even bear the _thought_ of it! 

. . . the thought of _him_ being shattered. That’s . . . that’s the thought that she can’t bear, Ruby realizes slowly as she stares at his shocked and distraught face. Not herself. Catseye. 

If _Catseye_ were shattered . . . 

“Leave,” she says roughly, clenching her fists. “Leave this place and–and don’t come back. Go back to wherever you came from and _stay_ there.” 

“My Ruby–” Catseye says again, eyes wide and voice pleading. He takes a step towards her. She takes a step back. 

She runs from him. 

He cries out behind her, but she doesn’t listen and she doesn’t look back--not even when she hears him chase her; not even when she hears him fall. Catseyes aren’t soldiers. Not like Rubies. They don’t run too much. 

And she only has to escape him this once. He’ll never be able to recognize her among all the other Rubies. 

Her Catseye. 

It’s not even hard to escape him. Aside from how it’s maybe the hardest thing she’s ever done, she means. 

She forgot the datapad. She didn’t even delete the picture. 

It doesn’t seem to matter, now. No one will know it was her who took it. No one will ever suspect a Ruby of drawing anything at all, much less anything like _that_. 

Ruby looks at . . . nothing. The tall, shining towers with windows too high to see through and the familiar pathways she’s patrolled thousands upon thousands of times and the dim silhouette of the Rubies’ barracks in the distance; her empty surroundings all cast in pale purple and dull gray, no other color and no other gems to be seen. 

She escaped. 

She’ll never see that Catseye again. 

And the dreamy, daring, stupid part of her . . . that part of her feels like something’s . . . like . . . like something she can’t even find a name for. Something terrible and all-encompassing that makes her hands tremble just like Catseye’s had, when he’d stared at her like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. After they’d--after they’d-- 

Ruby clenches her fists until they _stop_ , and then Ruby heads back to the barracks. It’ll be shift change soon. She needs to be there. 

She needs to disappear, and there’s no better place to do it. 

It’s for the best. It’s for the best, and it’s safest for _both_ of them. Because if she saw Catseye again . . . if she saw him and he saw _her_ , saw her and _knew_ her, if they _touched_ . . . 

It’s for the best. 

She disappears into the barracks, just like always. She reports for her shift, just like always. Black Sapphire’s schedule is set, just like always. His veil is between them, just like always. All the curtains in the room he hardly ever leaves are drawn, just like always. Nothing is different at all--just like always. 

It must just be her, then, but for some reason, she can’t help thinking that he seems even sadder than before.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://thescuttlebugg.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
